What are bitcoins?
Bitcoins are the unit of currency of the Bitcoin system. A commonly used shorthand for this is “BTC” to refer to a price or amount (eg: “100
BTC”). There are such things as physical bitcoins, but ultimately, a bitcoin is just a number associated with a Bitcoin Address. A physical bitcoin
is simply an object, such as a coin, with the number carefully embedded inside. See also an easy intro to bitcoin.

Which takes you here: en.bitcoin.it... ( also very worth reading if you're new to the concept )

Alice is far away from Bob and wants to buy his Alpaca socks. In return, she wants to send him a dollar. A dollar bill is a piece of paper which
is very easy to create (by those who can), but which is accepted by people in exchange for valuable products and services in the real world, such as
the socks Alice wants to buy. One simple thing Alice can do is put a dollar bill in an envelope, mail it to Bob, and then wait for Bob to send the
socks to her.

This link takes you to a forum thread which goes in more depth ( bitcointalk.org... ) .. ultimately you can be "scammed" in the
same ways you can be scammed online for virtually anything.. but since you don't have to convert cash to bitcoins you stand to lose nothing if you
look at the FAQ on how to obtain them .. it's just meant to be a form of digital and mostly untraceable currency that CAN be converted to and from
real cash if you choose to .. using services or by trading it with others.

By the way - you get bitcoins a number of ways, but the easiest way is by letting the bitcoin "mining" program run ...

The creation of coins must be limited for the currency to have any value.

New coins are slowly mined into existence by following a mutually agreed-upon set of rules. A user mining bitcoins is running a program that searches
tirelessly for a solution to a very difficult math problem whose difficulty is precisely known. The difficulty is automatically adjusted regularly so
that the number of solutions found globally, by everyone, is constant: an average of 6 per hour. When a solution is found, the user may tell everyone
of the existence of this newly found solution, along with other information, packaged together in what is called a "block".

Blocks contain 50 bitcoins at present. This amount is an incentive for people to perform the computation work required for block generation. Roughly
every 4 years, the number of bitcoins that can be "mined" in a block reduces by 50%. Any blocks that are created by a malicious user that do not
follow this rule (or any other rules) will be rejected by everyone else. The result is that no more than 21 million bitcoins will ever exist.

Because the mining incentive to put forth the computational power to create blocks will eventually diminish, miners will some day instead pay for
their hardware and electricity costs by collecting transaction fees. The sender of money may voluntarily pay a small transaction fee which will be
kept by whoever finds the next block. Paying this fee will encourage the miner to include the transaction in a block more quickly.

On a side note, this the currency that will allow you to peruse areas of the web considered off limits to most others...and usually for good reason;
and despite the above article stating otherwise, transactions with bitcoins are best used anonymously.

But, if you want to see the real stuff (definition is subjective), the opportunity is there, as there are services out there that will take you
to all the dark places on the net for a fee.

Here is a thread that discusses the ups and downs, as well as the darker side of bitcoins - bitcointalk.org...

The darker side of bitcoin? lol I'm sorry but bitcoin does not have a personality. It does not have a light or a dark side.

Does fiat currency have a light and dark side?

Fiat currency can be used to do all the same things. The point is totally irrelevant.

To the op.

You need to research yourself my friend. All the info is out there. You can simply google "what is bitcoin" and the same goes for all your other
questions. Bitcoin most certainly is not a scam. It's a very exciting prospect indeed.

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